Canning our garden

We have an abundant garden this year. For Mother's Day, the Daddy fenced off a section of our backyard with pretty white lattice for my garden. We planted tomato, peas, strawberries, basil, thyme, parsley, mint, jalapeno, onions, carrots, beets, okra and pickling cucumbers.

The carrots, tomato and cucumbers have gone crazy! With our abundance we decided to try our hand at canning. I planted pickling cucumbers because we once got homemade pickles as a gift that were the best things I've ever tasted. I love pickles!

Supplies: canning jars, lids and such

Beets, pickling cucumbers, pickling salt, garlic, dill and other spices Our pickling cucumbers were so large that we had to cut them. They are huge! So we know have pickles 'spears'. They don't taste like regular cucumbers. These pickling cucumbers are kind of tasteless.

Washing the beets- I was so worried that the beets would stain our sink or counter tops. But their color is truly beautiful.

John was in charge of the beets. Here they are washed, boiled and sliced.

P.S. I hate beets.

So the basic process of canning is this:

Sterilize jars/lids, make a brine, put veggies, spices and brine in jars, seal by submerging in boiling water for a period of time, then let sit for a couple of weeks We have four weeks until we can taste our hard work!!! I keep checking the jars each day, hoping they taste so wonderful and we can give some of them as gifts. We'll be canning again shortly. Our garden is overflowing.